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Don't Count Cobol Out

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the great-disturbance-in-the-force dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Although Turing Award-winning computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra once said, 'the use of Cobol cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense,' Michael Swaine has an interesting entry to Dr. Dobb's Journal asserting that Cobol is the most widely used language in the 21st century, critical to some of the hottest areas of software development today, and may be the next language you'll be learning. In 1997, the Gartner Group estimated that there were 240 billion lines of Cobol code in active apps, and billions of lines of new Cobol code are being written every year. Cobol is a key element in the realization of modern distributed business software architecture concepts — XML/metadata, Web Services, Service Oriented Architecture — and e-business."

6 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. GOODBYE WORLD by Tumbleweed · · Score: 5, Funny

    000100 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
    000200 PROGRAM-ID.     HELLOWORLD.
    000300
    000400*
    000500 ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
    000600 CONFIGURATION SECTION.
    000700 SOURCE-COMPUTER. RM-COBOL.
    000800 OBJECT-COMPUTER. RM-COBOL.
    000900
    001000 DATA DIVISION.
    001100 FILE SECTION.
    001200
    100000 PROCEDURE DIVISION.
    100100
    100200 MAIN-LOGIC SECTION.
    100300 BEGIN.
    100400     DISPLAY " " LINE 1 POSITION 1 ERASE EOS.
    100500     DISPLAY "NO THANKS!" LINE 15 POSITION 10.
    100600     STOP RUN.
    100700 MAIN-LOGIC-EXIT.
    100800     EXIT.

  2. Re:Cobol defeated da Terminator by guyminuslife · · Score: 5, Funny

    FYI: When he was reprogrammed by John Connor, it was in COBOL.

    --
    I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
  3. Re:job market by PPH · · Score: 5, Funny

    What do COBOL coders make these days?

    COBOL programs.

    <rimshot/>

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  4. Clarification by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Funny

    In 1997, the Gartner Group estimated that there were 240 billion lines of Cobol code in active apps, and billions of lines of new Cobol code are being written every year.

    The report neglected to mention that 239.9 billion of those lines were boilerplate headers and math operators spelled out with English verbs.

  5. You know the pose by david_thornley · · Score: 4, Funny

    Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

    What I got when I tried to post the original:

    Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

    So what do you do when yelling is appropriate?

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  6. billions of lines by doti · · Score: 4, Funny

    "billions of lines of new Cobol code are being written every year"

    that accounts two hello worlds, and one program that shows the first 1000 fibonacci numbers.

    --
    factor 966971: 966971